I don't see dead people

  Mom & me in May 2009

This blog began as an attempt to stop my maddening anxiety over the death of my mother from toppling my world as I know it. The counselor said one way to help grieve would be to talk to my mom every day,  or even to write to her about the mudane details of my daily life.  I almost fell out of my chair - talk to a dead person?  No way, absolutely not, I told her. I can't even imagine doing that.  So, we explored what other options I had... And then I realized that earlier that week, I had run across an old essay of my moms - I will post it next - written about an encounter she shared with my then six month old son.  It was a funny account, with writing so clear, I was transported back to that period almost instantly, where I began to imagine just the two of them there, spending that wonderful moment in time together. And right about then is when I started to cry.  And immediately, the counselor said "well, then your job is to read your mom's writing. Oh, and if you can cry while you're doing it all the better, cause it will help get the sadness out".

My mother was always a writer and simultaneously never a writer. She wrote pages and pages furiously and with fervor every day. This was apparently something she had kept secret from us for the majority of her adult life, as we have begun to find bits and pieces of writings from practically every era of her lifetime.  Towards the end, once the cancer had made her its permanent home, she longed to write a book, but got stopped in all sorts of ways that you get stopped when you want something really good for yourself.

Ironically enough, it was one of our last stints in an I.C.U. room at the world-famous MD Anderson Cancer Center, under the glaring lights and hum of the ventilator that my mother decided then was finally the time to write the book. A time when she could neither speak a word, nor communicate a thought due to the machine forcing air in and out of her lungs, keeping her body clicking along for another couple of months.

The I.C.U Project will share the melody of her thoughts, lifted from her heart and meshed with words, as well as that passion she held for life, which bled humorously and often painfully from the ink pen she used.

(by susan)